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Human Remains Discovered After 12-Year Search For American Student In Aruba

ORANJESTAD  –  There is another twist to the mystery surrounding the disappearance of American high school graduate Natalee Holloway following the discovery of human remains in this Dutch Caribbean territory.

Holloway, 18, was with friends on a post-high school trip to Aruba in 2005 when she vanished, leaving her loved ones wondering for years what happened to her.

For years, speculation has swirled around Joran van der Sloot, a Dutch national last seen with the Alabama teen at a tourist bar on the island.

With the discovery of the remains, Holloway’s father, Dave Holloway, and private investigator T.J Read more

Woman Set Ablaze After Refusing To Have Sex With A Man

KINGSTOWN, St Vincent – Police say a man is assisting their investigations as they probe the circumstances that led to a 44-year-old woman being set ablaze in a bed on Sunday.

Relatives of Monique Clarke of Biabou, a town east of here, said that they have been told by hospital officials that if she survives, she will have a very long road to recovery.

Media reports here said that the woman was set ablaze reportedly after she refused to have sex or give money to a man with whom she has had an abusive relationship for the past two years.

Clarke’s sister, Iesha Richardson, said that her sister told her that she was set ablaze as she was lying wrapped in a sheet in her bed.

“If I didn’t know her, I wouldn’t be able to recognise her,” Richardson said, adding that medical personnel at Milton Cato Memorial Hospital (MCMH) met with relatives on Monday to outline her condition.

“They told me it’s a mixture [of 3rd- and 2nd-degree burns] and if she survives, she has a long, long — as in they [emphasised] the word ‘long’ — way to go, if she survives the ordeal.

“She is swollen, her left eye is burnt, so she is not seeing out of that eye,” Richardson said, adding “they (the doctors) are kind of tight-lipped but I am not stupid.

“I am not a stupid person Read more

Barbados Pm Defends Controversial National Social Responsibility Levy

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados – Prime Minister Freundel Stuart has defended the National Social Responsibility Levy (NSRL) saying the country was dealing “incrementally” with a ‘serious deficit problem”:

Addressing stakeholders to the Barbados Social Partnership meeting here, Stuart defended the near 400 percent increase in the NSRL amid calls from the trade unions and the private sector for either a reduction or a complete repeal of the fiscal measure that came into force at the start of July.

During the budget presentation in May, Finance Minister Chris Sinckler said the NSRL, which was introduced in September last year, would be increased from two to ten percent effective July 1.

According to Sinckler, this increase will result in “increased revenue of $291 million for a full financial year and $218 million for the remaining nine months of the current fiscal year”.

The NSRL was imposed on goods imported into Barbados and on domestically manufactured goods Read more

Cal Pilots Raise Safety Concern Over Atr Planes

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad – On the heels of an emergency landing in St Lucia by an ATR aircraft belonging to Caribbean Airlines (CAL), pilots yesterday held a “critical” meeting to discuss safety concerns over the aircraft.

The T&T Guardian was told by a source that the pilots are threatening to ground all flights until CAL rectifies all issues raised by them, including recurring technical problems on aircraft.

Contacted about the meeting held by the T&T Airline Pilots Association (TTALPA) yesterday, CAL communications manager Dionne Ligoure said she was aware but could not comment further on it.

On Sunday, Flight BW434 was forced to make an emergency landing at Hewanorra International Airport in St Lucia after a warning light came on in the aircraft’s cockpit Read more

Pm Confident Of Victory In Upcoming General Election

ST GEORGE’S, Grenada – Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell says he is confident that the ruling New National Party (NNP) will be returned to power in the upcoming general election.

Mitchell, who is also the current chairman of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) urged Grenadians to return the party to power to ensure that there is a smooth transition from one chairman of the CDB to another next year.

He said that in May 2018, Grenada will be hosting the annual CDB meeting and hopes that Grenadians will understand why his Government needs to be the one handing over to the new chairman.

“No changes should take place,” Mitchell said.

No date has been announced for the general election that is constitutionally due by March 2018.

The Parliamentary Elections Office, which is responsible for executing a general election, recently disclosed that it’s ready to ensure free and fear general elections Read more

Funding Climate Resilience Benefits All Nations – Yes, The U.S. Too

KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent – A leading climate change mitigation and adaptation activist and former climate negotiator in the Caribbean says that the United States could protect its economic and political interest by helping the region to go green.

Further, James Fletcher, a former Minister of Sustainable Development, Energy, Science and Technology in St. Lucia, says that US President Donald Trump’s emphasis on the coal industry is an attempt to increase jobs that no longer exist, while ignoring numerous opportunities in renewable energy.

On June 1, Trump announced that he would withdraw the United States from the global climate change deal reached in Paris in 2015, saying that the non-binding accord imposes draconian financial and economic burdens on the United States.

The US President was referring to the Green Climate Fund, for which advanced economies have formally agreed to jointly mobilise 100 billion dollars per year by 2020, from a variety of sources, to address the pressing mitigation and adaptation needs of developing countries.

Fletcher, who was the 15-member Caribbean Community’s lead negotiator for the Paris accord, told St Read more

Former Prosecutor Jailed For 17 Years

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad – A former police prosecutor has been jailed for 17 years with hard labour after he was found guilty of raping a then 17-year-old girl who had gone to the police station to make a report 16 years ago.

Justice Althea Alexis-Windsor, sitting in the San Fernando Second Criminal Court on Wednesday, said aggravating factors in the case against Harry Ramlochan were that the accused was a person of trust being a police prosecutor and acting sergeant and there was a level of vulnerability as the girl and her mother had gone to make a report about domestic violence.

The judge said she considered the convict’s age and child’s age at the time of the attack, and the fact that it was her first sexual encounter.

Prosecutor Sabrina Dougdeen-Jaglal had told the court the attack had severely scarred the victim for the rest of her life, saying she hoped that through her resilience, the victim will be able to overcome the effects of the incident.

Jurors took 90 minutes to find Ramlochan, who was 50 years old at the time of the crime, guilty of the offence after a month-long trial.

The woman told the court that on Saturday May 5, 2001 she went with her mother to the San Fernando police station to make a report that her mother had been beaten by a relative.

Ramlochan took the mother inside to make the report and then said he wanted to take a statement from her daughter Read more

New Generation Rallies To Climate Cause In Trinidad

PORT OF SPAIN – As two environmental activist groups in Trinidad and Tobago powered by young volunteers prepare to ramp up their climate change and sustainability activism, they are also contemplating their own sustainability and how they can become viable over the long-term.

IAMovement and New Fire Festival both began their environmental activism in earnest less than three years ago.

IAMovement captured the Trinidadian public’s imagination with its climate change march in 2014 and the iconic heart shape formed by 150 marchers who joined them, an emblem reprised by the 450 who joined IAMovement in 2015 in the country’s capital city of Port-of-Spain for the march that coincided with COP21 in Paris.

For the group’s first event in 2014, timed to coincide with the rallies being held worldwide during UN climate talks in New York, “people came, interested, but not sure what to expect Read more

Opposition Party Says It Will Win May 10 Poll

NASSAU, Bahamas – The main opposition Free National Movement (FNM) says it will win the May 10 general elections even as a political storm appears to be brewing over remarks made by Prime Minister Perry Christie that not even “God could stop” the ruling Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) from attaining victory at the polls.

Addressing a political rally in Grand Bahama over the weekend, FNM leader, Dr Hubert A Minnis said before arriving to address the rally, he had received “a formal report on the state of the general election.

“The report is based on information from every constituency and includes specific numbers Read more

A New Political Party Launches In Antigua

ST JOHN’S, Antigua – With a promise to advocate for transnational leadership and changing how politics has been practiced here, a new political party was launched Tuesday.

Member of Parliament for All Saints East and St Luke Joanne Massiah said the Democratic National Alliance (DNA) would change the culture of disillusionment with the current crop of political leaders in Antigua and Barbuda.

Massiah, who is a founding member of the DNA, said she would name candidates “after carnival.”

She envisions a “new Antigua and Barbuda” where residents can live out the motto, each endeavoring all achieving.

Massiah told the launch of her party, at the Multi-purpose Centre in the capital, that others in the past have failed to provide a reliable “supply of water, electricity and modern road infrastructure”.

She promised a 20-year development plan for the country called vision 20/20.

“Growth is only possible if we are prepared to change,” the female legislator said, while quoting the national anthem.

“We intend to give people hope Read more

Major Steps For International Protection Of Caribbean Sharks Following Dutch Proposal

CAYENNE, French Guiana - Great news for shark conservation in the Caribbean. On March 13th, 2017 it was officially decided to protect eight shark species under the international Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife (SPAW) Protocol following a proposal by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs in cooperation with a team of shark experts. The SPAW protocol is the only cross-border legislative instrument for nature conservation in the Wider Caribbean Region Read more

Caribbean Awaits Trump Moves On Climate Funding, Paris Deal

KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent – Caribbean leaders worry that with climate change sceptic Donald Trump in the White House, it will be more difficult for small island developing states facing the brunt of climate change to secure the financing necessary to adapt to and mitigate against it.

Mere days after Trump’s inauguration, the White House ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to delete a page about climate change from its website Read more

Lost Bob Marley Tapes Restored After 40 Years In London Basement

KINGSTON, Jamaica  – Lost recordings by Bob Marley found in a damp hotel basement in London after more than 40 years have been restored.

The tapes are the original, high-quality live recordings of the reggae legend’s concerts in London and Paris between 1974 and 1978. Tracks include No Woman No Cry, Jamming and Exodus.

They were at first believed to be ruined beyond repair, largely because of water damage.

Marley, who died in 1981, would have been 72 on Monday.

The tapes were found in a run-down hotel in Kensal Rise, north-west London, where Bob Marley and the Wailers stayed during their European tours in the mid-1970s.

They were discovered when Joe Gatt, a Marley fan and London businessman, took a phone call from a friend, who had found them while doing a building refuse clearance.

From the 13 reel-to-reel analogue master tapes, 10 were fully restored, two were blank and one was beyond repair Read more

Haiti President-Elect Says Trump Business Background To Help Ties

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Haiti’s incoming president said he believed U.S. President Donald Trump‘s business background would give him a better grasp of bilateral relations, as the impoverished Caribbean nation recovers from a devastating hurricane.

President-elect Jovenel Moise, a successful banana exporter, was declared winner this month of a vote initially held in 2015 that had to be rerun more than a year later, due to allegations of voter fraud. He is scheduled to be sworn in on Feb Read more

St. Lucia Making Slow, Steady Progress Towards Renewable Energy

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates  –  St. Lucia is making slow, but steady progress in its renewable energy transition plan, Minister for Infrastructure, Ports, Energy and Labour, Stepehenson King said.

The Caribbean island is hoping to achieve a target of 35 percent renewables by 2035.

“We are also hoping that by the year 2023, with the various components of renewable energy – wind, solar and geothermal – that we will be able to achieve at least 50 percent of the target set for 2035,” King told Caribbean News Service (CNS).

“We have done a fair amount Read more

Cuba Signs Deal With Google For Faster Internet Access

HAVANA, Cuba  – Google and the Cuban government have signed a deal allowing the internet giant to provide faster access to its data by installing servers on the island that will store much of the company’s most popular content.

Storing Google data in Cuba eliminates the long distances that signals must travel from the island through Venezuela to the nearest Google server. Washington has no direct data link to the communist island.

US has had virtually no economic ties with Cuba for more than five decades owing to Washington-imposed trade sanctions.

But hopes of better relations have been revived since 2015, when US President Barack Obama re-established diplomatic ties between the two countries.

Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc, signed the deal with Mayra Arevich Marin, president of state telecommunications monopoly ETECSA, on Monday.

The deal removes one of the many obstacles to a normal internet in Cuba, which suffers from some of the world’s most limited and expensive access.

But the move is not expected to help a significant number of Cubans to have internet access, at least in the short term.

Home connections remain illegal for most Cubans and the government charges the equivalent of a month’s average salary for 10 hours of access to public wi-fi spots with speeds frequently too slow to download files or watch streaming video.

The agreement does not affect Cuba’s antiquated communications infrastructure or broaden public access to the internet, but it could make Google websites such as YouTube or Gmail up to 10 times faster for users inside Cuba Read more

Successful Conference On Bonaire On The Political Future Of The Dutch Administrated Caribbean

BONAIRE - Recently Foundation Nos Kier Boneiru Bek organized a conference at Plaza Hotel which has put a foundation for a better future for the Bonerian peoples and of our other sister islands which are administrated by the Dutch. Following after the conference a gala-diner was held at Eddy's restaurant with keynote speaker Dr. Corbin. Both events were successful with good attendance and got from the participants and the public which followed the vents through the media that these were very informative and of international standards.

The delegation Aruba represented by Dr Gerrit Croes and of Curacao by Mr Read more